Friday, August 20, 2010

How Much Does a Writer Make?

I have read through several years of your back posts and I have a quick question for you as an assistant agent with inside knowledge and also for you as a published author in your own right.

You mentioned in a couple of your posts that it is common to see advances for new authors in the 5000-7000 range but I can't find any information about royalties. You do mention in an almost off handed way that each time you sell a book you receive about $1.12. What sort of annual income is typical for a author that publishes one book every other year. I think I could write a book a year if not more but I know the editing and everything else can drag out the process. I have no idea what typical sales for a book are. I understand that it is completely dependent on how well the book is received, I'm just looking for averages here.

Making money is complicated. Let me explain as best I can.

(1) Advance. This is an advance on future royalties. It is usually lower than it should be. It used to be new authors would make at least $5000-$7000, now it could be lower than that. Publishers don't like to spend. Repeat authors in the same company will make more and more on each advance. Ten years ago, if you were an established fiction author, you would be making around 30K a book in advances, so if you produced a book a year, you were doing well. These numbers are generally not maintained for mid-list or anyone below mid-list.

Non-fiction is an entirely different story. There is a huge range in advances. Most I've seen are above $20K.

(2) Royalties. The royalty rate for fiction is, at bottom level, 7.5% off LIST price, meaning the price they print on the back of the book, regardless of what the store sells it for. 7.5% is considered the bottom; more reputable places will give 8 or 10%. Then there's something called "escalation" where if your book has sold a certain number of copies (say, 20,000) the royalty rate will rise because at that point the publishers have earned back all the money they spent on producing the book and are willing to give you a little more. A nice escalation is to 20%, or in the case of a ton of books, 30%. Escalation rates vary hugely from company to company and also based on expectations of how much the book will sell.

From what I've seen, e-book sales have their own rate (which should be higher, like 20%, but publishers are working to keep that down), or they're a higher rate off NET prices, which is a percentage of what the book is actually sold for and what the publisher gets back from the bookstore. Net royalties are usually in the 20-30% range, but I've seen them higher. We expect e-Books to move up and down in terms of royalties as publishers and e-Book sellers figure out what the hell is going on.

(3) Payment of advance. Payment of advance occurs before the book sells any copies, though sometimes it's split up so the publisher can hold on to their money longer (publishers have a lot of tricks to do this). For a smaller press with a small advance, full payment can be upon signing, meaning a month after you sign the contract and it goes back to the publisher and it goes through accounting, then to your agent, then gets back to you. Some publishers split it to two dates: (1) Signing of the contract and (2) delivery of the completed manuscript to the publisher. Additionally, it can be split up as (1) signing, (2) delivery, and (3) publishing date. If you get a $500,000 advance, your publisher is going to pretty eager to split up payments, because it could be a year to a year and a half between signing the contract and publishing the book.

(4) Payment of royalties. After you earn out your advance, you will see royalties based on how well your book is doing. If the advance is high, you may not see royalties for years and years and years or never see them at all. The publisher is still required to tell you what you've been selling (a royalty statement) during one of its pay periods. It used to be quarterly, but now some publishers have moved to fall and spring, meaning I'm paid my royalties in November and April. If the number is below a certain amount (say, $50), the publisher may hold onto it until it earns that amount. Publishers don't like writing $4.00 checks. If it's within the first 6 months of publication, the publisher may stipulate that they can hold back 50% of your earnings against returns of the books by stores, which will then subtract from your future earnings, and if there are no returns, they will release your earnings the following year. The following year, they can then take the amount they owed you the previous year that they held against returns and split THAT in half, and hold that half against more returns. In other words, if your book does well, publishers will perpetually owe you money because they will find ways not to pay you.

The only advice I can say when planning a writing career is: don't. I make most of my money from books, but I'm never sure when the next book will sell, the next contract will be signed, and for how much. I don't know my royalty earnings until I earn them. It's like having a job where sometimes you earn lots of money and sometimes you earn none, but most of the time you're lucky to earn just enough to say, "There's no reason to get a real job. I'm building my career." Or that's what I tell my parents.

60 comments:

I publish a book every other year, and I make about $3000 a year. This can be interrupted by publishing dates being changed without notice, or by editors not getting back to me about changes for months and months so that my next check isn't released on schedule.

Most books do not earn out, meaning you get no royalties beyond your advance.

This is good to know, although my (admittedly limited) experience with nonfiction has revealed much less earning potential, especially working with a small press. At first, I was shocked and then I felt dismayed, but then I thought: why quibble with them over such small amounts. Am I in it for the money? I suppose I have to eat, but it seems hard to imagine my creative writing ever rising above the earning potential of my corporate day job. Now I must finish the manuscript!

Good site, by the way. I've been following for a few months now and appreciate all your hard work.

Figuring out the money side of the business can be very confusing. Thanks for the information.

One note on e-publishing. I'm not sure what houses were researched to get the 20% to 30% rates, but the houses I've investigated, which are romance e-publishers with limited print titles, average 35% through 40% of the cover price. With the e-book business modle there are no advances. This may be genre specific. I can say my own royaly rate is over the 30% top end quoted in the article.

There's actually not a big difference between the data that The Rejecter provides and what Dean is saying. There are other sales, but not all authors will be able to sell audio rights/movie options/translation rights...There's also this bit, in one of his comments: "If you write two short stories per year and one novel per year, you will never get there, at least not in a generation or two. But if you write three novels per year and a dozen short stories per year, it won’t take you long at all to pick up real speed and practice enough to learn your craft."

It's impossible to make a living publishing books. Yes there are a handful of people who do, like Stephen King and J.K. Rowling. None of us are them.

The only way to make a living as an author is to have another job, preferably one that helps you promote the book. Radio show hosts, newspaper columnists, and hardcore bloggers not only have the income those gigs offer, they have an attentive audience already in place.

I've written four books and co-authored/edited a dozen more. Trust me folks, there's no money to be made writing books.

A real writer doesn't write for money. We write because we want the characters we dream about let us sleep at night. We could had a better job, better paid, but we prefer writing for the up coming generations. Someone must write for them too. Probably our names will remain in history like Homer's, or probably not. No one paid Homer for his masterpieces. The thing is we don't do that for money. 3000 a year is too little for the effort we make writing the novels. A writer is a God in his book. We create everything, the people, the landscapes, the colors, the action. No one pays God, why should they pay us? And look, they do.

the advances are significantly lower where I live - we have a very small population and getting our books picked up overseas seldom happens. I earn more money talking about writing (author talks and workshops) then I do from my books but this eats into my writing time.

Best to think of earning potential as a pyramid with most writers getting very little, on or near the bottom level

Interesting article. There are ways to make money as a writer. I haven't even published a real book yet, and I am making a decent living off of freelancing and an ebook I just published last week. It can be done but it takes persistence and drive.

i just sent in a fiction book, which was my first of course but i have always been a good reader in fact when i was in third grade i read at an adult level... so if my writing is good then maybe i can make some money that my mom wont steal... am i the only fourteen year old author here!!?? x. x but what if i dont have a bank account? i have a savings though would it go into that? or would it go into my moms?

I posted on my blog recently the actual figures from a book that debuted on the NY Times Bestseller List a #19. You can see the figures from the first statement, and then from the second. The second statement will show you what he made after 11 months since the books release date. Your info is great and I feel my post could also shed some light on the situation. Check it out.

Just to let everyone know My blog got completely erased so this post is no longer on there. I don't want people to think I'm trying to trick people to go to my site. I can promise that I will try to rewrite the old post and put it up again. I will post here when I do it to let everyone know that it is back up. Thanks again and I'm sorry for the inconvenience.

This whole thing is of course based on the current publishing model, which I can't imagine being sustainable.

I understand the publisher's point of view about promoting, printing, and logistics of book distribution. But now publishers are making pure profit from e-books. There is NO reason that contracts couldn't be written where the author gets 70% (yes, that's 70%) each time an e-book is sold.

Google just launched Google Music where the musicians get 70% of each sale. I can see this as the model of the future. Imagine a Google Books (different from the current iteration) that directly shares with writers and share the revenue similarly. Doing the math, a person selling just 25,000 books for $4 would make $70,000.

True that there are e-publishing outlets where writers can go (like pubit.com) but it's certainly not main stream yet. I look forward to the day where writers get what they are worth, and readers get e-books for a relative bargain.

I write erotica and self publish on amazon an smashwords. In 2010 I made about $23,000. In 20111 I made $49,000!! But now in 2012 my sales are looking like they're returning to the $20K - $30K/yr range. They are vampire erotica. I rode the vampire wave and it paid out. I don't have any secrets to success. I just wrote and published. I think people should know that it's possible to make money by self publishing. Good luck!

truly, there are books where the author should pay you to read them , nothing but crap and a waste of time including many at college level. dull, pointless. if you really have a mind like a founding father and you can write a book that can challenge the most rational people ever existed. i bet you can make millions and this book will be translated to many languages . watch out will be coming soon. who wants to read crap , erotica vampire etc

@anonymous who called the writer of this post a "jerk": This is why people like Amanda Hocking and other successes don't waste their time offering "failing writers" advice, because they don't know how to LISTEN. They name-call if someone doesn't tell them they'll be the next JK Rowlings. Learn how to listen. Also, this is this blogger's post. They can post what they want, right? If you disagree, no need to name-call, IMO.

@chris w- how do you verify that pubit.com is a valid site? They ask for every bit of your personal information (i.e.; banking info, social security and tax info, credit card info...) without having verifying marks on their site that state they wont still your personal identity. I have to admit, I dont feel very comfortable giving out that info freely over the internet.

Thanks for the info! Is there a how-to book you view as a "must read" for aspiring fiction writers? My husband's theory is that if my book gets published, I will only make $200. Normally he's supportive, but money is tight so he's leery of me spending money taking writing classes.

Like any other career or vocation in society, fame and fortune is elusive. Any career, and I mean any, has its own dreamers. That's not bad. And in any career, by a stroke of circumstances, luck, and whatever you call it, there will be the few who get's fame, fortune, or both. Medical practitioners, lawyers, businessmen, programmers, name it, are not different animals. Imagine, thousands of them get into school to achieve their dreams. So few made it. There are thousands of programmers but only a few - bill gates, mark zuckerberg, larry page/sergey brin, et. al.,- made it real big.

If you want to write for money, that's great. And for the sake of writing, that's great too.

You can try and if you love what you do and happy about the writing process itself, do it even if you won't earn much. If you earn so much, that's not bad.

The publishing industry is in the dumps. I work for a publisher. I'll be lucky if I still have a job in a month. The authors are making pennies these days compared to what they were getting two years ago. It's dismal. But hey, if you're okay making nothing for months of hard work, go for it. I'm not telling you not to, just telling you what the reality is right now thanks to all the self publishing going on.

I do write for the personal satisfaction, but part of that satisfaction is the response that I get from readers. Watching my books sell is part of the positive jolt I get when someone responds to my work. It is good to have extra money in the bank account and not worry about making my bills, but I also spend time on the road promoting my books because of that reader/writer interaction. I think those road trips also increase sales. So while knowing the facts of contracts is a huge bonus in figuring out if this is something you can do, you should also take into account that you must market your work.

Ok clearly the hard truth is that writing books these days is hard and as said earlier there are few people like J.K.Rowley who can make money off this. It might be hard to do but remember that she is just a person like you and me, all you have to do is come up with a great idea that will connect with people and have a deep plot. Thanks for this post and the figures contained.

I wrote a book called BASEBALL TEAM NAMES published in 2013 by McFARLAND. The book has received 6 good reviews and is ranked #37 on the Best Sports Books of 2013To date, I've only earned a few hundred bucks in royalties but I'm going to push on with football, basketball, soccer andice hockey names. Why? Because the world economy is so bad I am putting my hopes on earning a living - but not getting rich - by writing books.

An author with the big 5 talks about this over on her blog The Honest Author. It's really depressing when you consider how much work goes into creating a book. But also useful to know if you think you're banking on being the next JK. http://thehonestauthor.com/

I wrote my first book - BASEBALL TEAM NAMES - which has been published by McFarland. McFarland will publish my 2nd book - FOOTBALL TEAM NAMES. I wrotre a 3rd book (baseball) for which I've been offered a contract with another publisher. My advice is: 1) write NON-FICTION and don't do fiction, 2) Write at least 1 book a year (2 if you can do it), 3) market your book well, 4) cooperate with your publisher (avoid conflicts) and maybe just maybe you might be able to pay the rent/mortgage, utilities and groceries every year. The keys are: 1) non-fiction and write as many as 5-6 books in a 5 year period. Good luck!

I wrote my first book - BASEBALL TEAM NAMES - which has been published by McFarland. McFarland will publish my 2nd book - FOOTBALL TEAM NAMES. I wrotre a 3rd book (baseball) for which I've been offered a contract with another publisher. My advice is: 1) write NON-FICTION and don't do fiction, 2) Write at least 1 book a year (2 if you can do it), 3) market your book well, 4) cooperate with your publisher (avoid conflicts) and maybe just maybe you might be able to pay the rent/mortgage, utilities and groceries every year. The keys are: 1) non-fiction and write as many as 5-6 books in a 5 year period. Good luck!

@Chris, yes in THEORY if an "author" sells 25,000 books for $4 they could make $70,000 I guess. But those kinds of numbers are "outlier" numbers I think. I don't have hard data at hand but I gather that the majority of authors don't sell those kinds of numbers.

@anonymous, may I ask why you are on "anonymous" & not just giving your name? If you've really sold that many books & made that much $ here would be a good place & time to plug your book. You didn't even offer a link to the Amazon so people could see or anything. Are you being truthful?

@anon, a LOT of people want to read erotica or vampire fiction ( I guess). Be careful what you call crap, please. What you really need to learn is this: give people what they WANT, instead of trying to give them medicine. You will never make a dollar- let alone millions of them- writing like the founding fathers. BORING! And there's no point in getting angry with people because that's equally boring.

No, he's not a jerk, he's giving sound advice. You need to learn how to take that advice....or not....and stop name-calling either way. This is why the few writers that actually make it don't want to give advice. For one thing, you (writers) don't listen. And for another, you always accuse people of trying to destroy your dreams if they don't tell you what you want to hear.

So a little confused... I'm surfing multiple sites right now, trying to figure out how much writers are making these days.It's all beginning to make since, however there was a minor conflict in the information given..About paying back the advances.If the the book does not sell as sucessful as the company predicted, is the author forced to pay the advance back??Also curious. Are there cases in which the author does have to repay the advance though it is just seldom? Could that justify why the other site stated advances are payed back?

So a little confused... I'm surfing multiple sites right now, trying to figure out how much writers are making these days.It's all beginning to make since, however there was a minor conflict in the information given..About paying back the advances.If the the book does not sell as sucessful as the company predicted, is the author forced to pay the advance back??Also curious. Are there cases in which the author does have to repay the advance though it is just seldom? Could that justify why the other site stated advances are payed back?

It is a bit disappointing to learn how little writing makes. i am currently writing my first book and i got curious, so that's how i ended up here, apparently two years to late but that it beside the point. i honestly don't think i am a very good writer and my book will most likely never be published but when i finished the second chapter i read through what i had so far. when i finished reading i looked up, my vision had blurred and it took a second to get back to reality. after that i simply rolled over, grinning at the ceiling. had anyone seen me they would have thought i had gone insane, but i lied there, grinning at the ceiling because i had fallen into world of my own making and the only way i could describe the way i felt that day was, simply extraordinary. it is rather disappointing that authors do not make a lot of money, but that's not why writers wright, at least, in my opinion. i believe writer wright to feel that feeling every day of their lives, i am only fourteen but i know i do. ( p.s. sorry for any grammar errors, i need to work on that:} )